police in aa meetings

[ronnietoon]

can the police obtain evidence from anything you say at an aa meeting and use it in court

[FredPuli43]

What you say in an AA meeting should be treated as akin to privileged and not admitted in evidence. Evidence obtained as a consequence of what you said could be treated as unfairly obtained and therefore excluded from evidence. Two difficulties arise. The first is that witnesses might not reveal or give any clue to how the evidence was found. The evidence may be given as "I found this knife" without saying that the reason the witness was looking for it, and knew where to find it, was that they'd heard or been told of the defendant saying so in an AA meeting. The second is that the trial judge has a discretion to admit evidence. In some cases, such as the instance just given, the trial judge might well hold that the evidence was so significant that any unfairness was outweighed by its importance, in the interests of justice; the knife might be the murder weapon , for example. After all, goes the thinking, we admit evidence of matters discovered on ordinary hearsay (reported speech of someone not a witness to the fact given) but don't admit the hearsay itself!

[johnny37]

In other words, its up to the judge.

[sandyRoe]

I think there are two kinds on AA meeting, public, and private. I can't see how what is said at a private meeting would be considered privileged.
Imagine you were in your club, and in your cups, and admitted to your companions that it had been you who had dispatched Professor Plum with the candlestick in the billiard room. If the waitress overheard you could she not bring this confession to the attention of the authorities?

[shoota]

'Evidence' - no, probably not as anything you say would not be under caution.
'Intelligence' - yes.
If you say 'I get bladdered in the Wig and Pistle and then drive home' you could not be charged with drink drive but you might find a covert car parked opposite the pub when next you attend.
If you said 'I got bladdered in the Wig and Pistle and knifed a passer by on the way home' you could find yourself arrested and interviewed at which point the evidence would be obtained.
If you said 'I got b'd in the W&P and nicked a burger on the way home I doubt if anything would occur.
Why? Got something you want to share?

[shoota]

On top of which Police wouldn't be at an AA meeting as non of them drink.....

[anneasquith]

police dont drink ? ooft !

[sandyRoe]

Well, the officers who regularly attend AA meetings, public or private, shouldn't.

[shoota]

AA - 'oooft' nice word! Well alright, maybe a sherry every once in a while.

[anneasquith]

shoota. next you^ll be telling us they make good husbands :)

[FredPuli43]

Getting bladdered in the Pig and Whistle and saying or doing something against your own interest is one thing.That's a risk you have taken voluntarily and is taken in a public place, as well. Speaking in an AA meeting where everything said in the room is explicitly to remain in the room, is quite another. It's akin to privileged speech just as correspondence with your solicitor about litigation generally is, or what is said in the confessional to a priest is.

[shoota]

They make good husbands.......

[Davethedog]

You have said, whatever you have said, in a public forum. It would be no different that any other form of intelligence gathering, so a witness can attest to it, or providing it was legal documented any other form of intelligence gathering is allowed.

The fact that its in A A gives it no more form of immunity that any other private members club.

[shoota]

I think that it is a matter of degree Fred.
Should you have learned of the whereabouts of Osama in an AA meeting would you have remained schtum, if you were a copper of course?

[sandyRoe]

Fred, would my hypothetical member of the Athenaeum, a private club, enjoy the same privileged speech?

[sandyRoe]

I never liked AA meetings, anyway

[FredPuli43]

Incidentally, I've never met anyone in an AA meeting who admitted to being, or having been, a policeman. That would be too much of a confession, even for us! Have met judges (fine) and one air traffic controlller (eek!) but no policeman, even among those long in recovery, who might let this information out more freely.

[shoota]

Off the subject a bit - I actually gave up drink when I was a cop because of all the crop I saw which resulted from its use.
Now my intake averages about 5 units a month.

[jno]

I don't think saying "This conversation is off the record" is enough to make it so, unless the law permits it. The law may allow confidentiality for what you tell your priest or lawyer; journalistic ethics may prevent a reporter repeating a story; but in the normal run of things, I believe it's as Davethedog says. If someone repeats what they've heard at an AA meeting, they may have breached the AA code but they haven't broken any evidentiary law that I know of.

[FredPuli43]

No, Sandy. Members and staff of the Athenaeum are too bound by convention to tell anyone anything, but they wouldn't be protected. There's a distinction, which I'm sure the judge would acknowledge, between a club which may have a convention (not one I'm aware of, by the way) and an AA meeting where people are invited to confess to misdeeds on the explicit understanding and rule that their speech would not be reported outside. There is no absolute and binding rule or explicit understanding that what one member of a gentleman's club says in the club is not to be repeated elsewhere.

Yes, it's a question of fact and degree. You'd have a job keeping out a statement in a confessional that the congregant was going to leave the box and kill his wife, in the subsequent trial. Similarly, something found in a house search conducted without a warrant, if one was technically needed, but which had not been obtained in time, might well be allowed in. But judges are quick to exclude admissions made in consequence of breaches of the rules on police interviews, since they have a deep suspicion of the merits of such evidence anway and think that the police should not be allowed to break rules devised to protect the public against such abuses. The law is against such practices.

[ronnietoon]

thanks for your answers especially fred , i asked the question as when i "share" my pulse goes sky high and i end up not remembering what i have said.(sober)